Bev's 65 x 365

The end

2009-06-29T00:01:00.000-07:00

I did it. I completed this list of 365 people I have encountered in my life, some of them very brief encounters, some of them very close to me. It was at times quite challenge, but many entries evoked memories I hadn’t thought of in years. I notice that the person who started this project no longer has a web site, so I can’t even go and report “I DID IT!” ...but I’m glad it’s a project I started and saw through to its completion.

365/365: My Children

2009-06-28T00:01:00.000-07:00

I have left off my kids in this list. Jeri, Ned, Paul, Tom, David–two of them no longer here. They are literally the wind beneath my wings. They support me, encourage me, love me, and roll their eyes at some of my antics. I love them more than I can say and am so glad that they are (or have been) in my life.

364/365: My Mother

2009-06-27T00:01:00.000-07:00

My mother has been my best friend for a very long time–not always, but for many years now. I admire her strength, her accomplishments. I love our talks togther. I love our card games, the lunches we have shared, and “Cousins Day,” the best day of the month. Everybody loves her and nobody can believe that she’s 90, since she doesn’t look older than 70.

363/365: Walt

2009-06-26T00:01:00.000-07:00

Today is our anniversary and we’re an ocean and a continent and a half apart. He’s let me come to Europe with Jeri and a bunch of women friends. Walt is one of the original good guys. He’s put up with me for 44 years through all of my craziness and never (well hardly ever) complained. I’m a very lucky person and I love him.

(Walt--check the drawer under the little TV in my office)

362/365: Marta

2009-06-25T00:01:00.000-07:00

Our first daughter-in-law and we got us a gem. I have told her more than once that I would nominate her for sainthood. She and Ned have a fantastic relationship and she keeps him grounded. I can’t even think of what life for Ned would be without her. She’s also a voracious reader, a terrific massage therapist and a beautiful singer...and drop dead gorgeous.

361/365: Laurel

2009-06-24T00:01:00.000-07:00

When I spent my first day with Laurel, I asked Walt if he thought Tom realized he was dating his mother. We had so many things in common. As her relationship with Tom blossomed into romance, and then into marriage, we were thrilled that she was going to stay in the family forever. Now she’s the mother to our only grandchild and a fantastic mother.

360/365: Phil

2009-06-23T00:01:00.000-07:00

Phil was just always here. Always the good guy. Ned’s good friend, Jeri’s good friend. Everybody loved Phil. And then after most of her life, Jeri realized that she loved him “in that way.” They’ve been married a year now and the glow on Jeri’s face whenever they are together makes me so very happy. (He also won my heart when he adopted our puppy!)

359/365: Audra

2009-06-22T00:01:00.000-07:00

We didn’t know Audra well when Paul married her and we were still in the “getting to know you” phase when Paul died. She moved to So. California after his death and got herself a veterinary practice. We still see her from time to time, but rarely. Finally, she has remarried and finally has a child of her own. I’m sorry it’s not Paul’s child.

358/365: Peggy

2009-06-21T00:01:00.000-07:00

We were long distance internet friends who became best friends, face to face, through her trip to the US and mine to Australia.. She’s the one I can talk to about photography, PhotoShop, animals, and things nobody else is interested in. I love laughing with her. I’m grateful for the time we’ve spent together, sad that we won’t be able to see each other again

357/365: Char

2009-06-20T00:01:00.000-07:00

What do you say about someone who has been your friend for most of your life? The crazy things we’ve done together, the good and bad memories we share? Who else would understand pumpkin pie marathons, ending in pie throwing? Teething on dinosaur bones? Seders in the desert? “Follow that grey car”? Laughing together, crying together. A lifetime of memories, and memories yet to come.

356/365: Jeri (the other one!)

2009-06-19T00:01:00.000-07:00

We’ve been friends since college, were in each other’s wedding, we are godmothers to each other’s daughters. We’ve been through good times and very bad times and it’s nice to know that she is always there if I need her. We don’t see each other so much now that she has a new love in her life, but if I called her, she’d be there.

355/365: Steve

2009-06-18T00:01:00.000-07:00

Steve was the window God opened when he shut the door with Paul’s death. It was a chance meeting over lunch in San Francisco and a BFF was born. Incredibly talented singer/songwriter living with AIDS. We’ve laughed and cried together. He knows my heart. The man with a hug for everyone. We’ve had lots of adventures together around the country! I love him a lot.

354/365: Gabi

2009-06-17T00:01:00.000-07:00

This is a woman who took a cart full of lemons and made delicious lemonade. Her son killed himself after a gay bashing and out of that tragedy she has worked tirelessly for the safety of gay kids in schools around the country. She is a quiet, unassuming woman with the ferocity of a lioness guarding her prey. I have such incredible admiration for her.

353/365: Arthur

2009-06-16T00:01:00.000-07:00

The first person I knew to die of AIDS. I was his assistant to the director for Mikado and he promised to take me to lunch as a thank you. He had a “cold” during the show and when it ended, I had a call that he had been taken to the hospital. I sent a card immediately and he didn’t live to read it.

352/365: Concetta

2009-06-15T00:01:00.000-07:00

Her father owned one of San Francisco’s most famous (and notorious) night clubs, yet she was always surprisingly normal. Part of our “Newman Group,” and the only one to be divorced. She has suffered from MS for many years and has no movement below her neck, yet she sometimes seems more active than I am. She grasps life with all she can while she can.

351/365: Kathy #2

2009-06-14T00:01:00.000-07:00

My cousin has always been in my life, but it has only been in the past 3 years that we’ve become closer friends, through “Cousins Day.” She’s had a very hard life and it bothers me to watch her struggle for breath, dealing with her COPD. She has only done good things for everyone around her and she deserved better from everyone in her life.

350/365: The (not so good) Actor

2009-06-13T00:01:00.000-07:00

He was the reason I didn’t become a theater critic many years earlier, when the entertainment editor asked me. I knew that I would have to review this man’s performances. He was a town favorite, his family and ours were friends, our kids went to school together. But–sorry–he was a TERRIBLE actor who had a much greater opinion of his talent than I had.

349/365: The Band Director

2009-06-12T00:01:00.000-07:00

When our kids were little, the director would march the high school marching band up and down our street and we always stood outside to watch. Later Jeri joined the marching band, but this particular director had left. We were casual friends through the years and later I learned that the director’s marriage had broken up because the director now had a same sex partner.

348/365: The Stage Mom

2009-06-11T00:01:00.001-07:00

It was a long time ago. Paul was 8. He had just been cast in his very first speaking role in the children’s theater. The mother of his competitor for the part pulled her kid out of the show, claiming Paul got preferential treatment because I was involved with the theater. It was a childish tantrum on her part. Paul was GOOD in the role!

347/365: Mike #3

2009-06-10T00:01:00.000-07:00

I sat with him at a gathering recently. Hadn’t seen him in years. He worked the local theater with our kids for years and years; we went to his wedding in a field on a mountain top somewhere; now he has Parkinson’s and I was surprised at how old he looked when I saw him. But he’s been an important part of our Davis history.

346/365: Martha

2009-06-09T00:01:00.000-07:00

What an amazing lady. In her 80s and still performing, now and then. She was producer for the Davis Comic Opera company for 30 years. When Paul was starting to be a rock singer, she gave him a free voice lesson to help him learn how to protect his voice. She is a “lady” in ever sense of the word. I’m glad she’s a friend.

345/365: Bob #8

2009-06-08T00:01:00.000-07:00

He’s a popular local columnist and it seems like I’ve known him forever. It’s fun to run into him at the supermarket. He gave a lovely talk at Paul’s memorial service, wrote wonderful things about Paul when he did his monologue show, and later, about David’s funeral and then Paul’s. He and I locked horns briefly on political issues, but have made up since then.

344/365: Gary

2009-06-07T00:01:00.000-07:00

I only met him once, briefly, but I’ve reviewed him three times. A wonderful actor, big teddy bear of a man. I can imagine him as a grandfather reading stories to little children. He is one of the few actors, in all the years I’ve reviewed shows, who has actually written to thank me for nice things I said about him (usually, I get complaints!)

343/365: The Critic

2009-06-06T00:01:00.000-07:00

I met this woman at a summer performance. We were sitting next to each other, each holding review packets. I tried to make small talk and she cut me dead, letting me know she had TONS of experience and I couldn’t possibly even hope to come up to her level. We see each other frequently, and I never try to talk to her any more

342/365: The File Clerk

2009-06-05T00:48:00.000-07:00

This was the very best thing I ever did in my job as office manager. I hired her, her skills were somewhat dubious, but I told her she would have to create her own job. By the time I left the job, the place could not run without her. She knew where everything was and could answer any question. She became invaluable to the office.

341/365: Marge

2009-06-04T00:48:00.000-07:00

She was my favorite aunt, the one I knew best. She smoked like a fish and had one of those smokers’ voices. She was warm and funny and had nicknames for everyone. She helped anybody who needed help. It was a terrible loss when she died of lung cancer. I still smile each spring when the iris bulbs from her yard bloom in my yard.

340/365: Stacie #2

2009-06-03T00:47:00.000-07:00

She saved me so many times when she was working as my assistant. Wonderfully intelligent and competent woman. When I was “invited” to leave my job, I told them they’d be crazy not to hire her to replace me, but they didn’t because, like me, she didn’t have a degree. When she left they hired a series of “qualified” people who couldn’t do the job.

339/365: The Recruiter

2009-06-02T00:47:00.000-07:00

She was all excited about the things we were going to do together and the work we were going to do together. It was like a non-financial pyramid scheme. Once she signed me up for her committee, she disappeared and I was stuck with a 2-year term on something I never quite “got.” I went to meetings, but feel that I contributed absolutely nothing.

338/365: Bob #7

2009-06-01T00:46:00.000-07:00

We dated for awhile. He lived up in the hills and had a VW bug. I remember having to lean into the curves when we drove up the hill to keep from tipping over. He married and had a son. He was an artist and made us the weirdest wedding present ever. We heard his wife left him, and later that he died of AIDS.

337/365: Bill #8

2009-05-31T00:46:00.000-07:00

Despite the fact that he was part of our group for decades, I never liked him. I cried when she married him and her mother took me on a long walk to convince me that it really was a good thing. He was wonderful to her and a fantastic Dad, but he and I just never hit it off. We were cordial, but never friends.

336/365: Caller ID’d

2009-05-30T00:47:00.000-07:00

We’ve been friends a long time, but since we got caller ID several years ago I don’t think there has been ONE single conversation we’ve had where she didn’t complain that I always knew who was calling, or complained that I acted like I didn’t know who was calling. It’s very irritating and it makes me want to not answer the phone when she calls!!

335/365: Valerie

2009-05-29T00:46:00.000-07:00

At the end of the school year, she had a nervous breakdown and I’m not surprised. What a disaster of a year. She told us she did best with girls and didn’t handle boys well (inspired confidence in those of us with sons). Volunteering in her class was such horrible experience that I never volunteered again. Our son threatened suicide that year. Terrible, terrible, terrible!

334/365: Sian

2009-05-28T00:45:00.000-07:00

She lives on a very small island in the North of Scotland and her pride and joy is the lighthouse near her house. We met her in England and continue to keep track of her through the internet. Such a great joy to visit her and see the wild, barren landscape of the area around Orkney, where some of the oldest human settlements are located.

333/365: The Travelers

2009-05-27T00:45:00.000-07:00

At a party I told the wife that I would love to see their travel photos (I meant it). About a week later, we were invited to dinner at their house. I made the mistake of asking “who else is coming?” We had a time conflict and it wasn’t until later that I realized we were invited to watch pictures. We were never invited again.

332/365: Scott & Matt

2009-05-26T00:44:00.000-07:00

I babysat for these two guys after school for about a year, shortly after we moved here. They were on the diving team with our kids and they were all good friends. They were a real handful. My neighbor reported me for babysitting without a license (didn’t know I needed one!). I couldn’t watch them any more, but recently found them, as adults, on Facebook.

331/365: Tim #2

2009-05-25T00:01:00.000-07:00

He married us. We were the first wedding he performed after he was ordained a Jesuit priest. He was not only a priest, but also a physicist and worked for years at Fermilab and later on the Superconducting Supercollider project. He was a warm, sweet, funny, brilliant guy who died suddenly in September of 2001. He was 73, but seemed younger. We still miss him.

330/365: Father Fisher

2009-05-24T00:01:00.000-07:00

If Fisher was on the altar, you knew you were in for a l-o-n-g Mass. Everything was very slow, very dramatic. He was a nice guy, whom we later visited in New York. Many years later he adopted a son and it was strange getting Christmas letters from him with news of his son. Fisher died several years ago, but we still remember him fondly

329/365: The Tour Guide

2009-05-23T00:01:00.000-07:00

After I graduated from high school, my mother, my grandmother and I went on a trip to Hawaii. We flew over and took the ship back. This guy was our tour guide, taking us on a catamaran cruise, and to a luau. Such a sweet, fun guy. A few years later we learned he had undergone a sex change operation and was now a woman.

328/365: The Lothario

2009-05-22T00:01:00.000-07:00

In love a 90 year old, and told her so several years ago. But he’s married and she told him she’s not going through breaking up his marriage. She just considers him a friend, and they remain friends, but he calls daily, stops by to visit, brings little gifts. I guess it proves that even in your 80s, there can still be romance and intrigue!

327/365: The Mom

2009-05-21T00:01:00.000-07:00

She raised the most beautiful, most talented, most intelligent, most special children in the world. I know this because I have never talked with her in thirty years when she hasn’t told me so. It became a joke. Say you’d met her in the store and my family will always ask “and how are her kids...?” She always forgets to ask “how are YOUR kids?”

326/365: Scrabble Buddy

2009-05-20T00:01:00.000-07:00

We live about 2 blocks from each other, but we almost never see each other; however we have been playing on-line Scrabble together for about 3 years. She is an amazing woman, who survived the death of a child and a husband in a fire and tells about it and rebuilding her life in her eloquent autobiography (unpublished). (She always beats me at Scrabble too!)

325/365: Doug #2

2009-05-19T00:01:00.000-07:00

He was a local business owner and husband of a friend of mine. When he got a computer, he hired me to come help him with some problems he was having. The second time I came out, I spent half a day trying to fix his problem, but it was not possible. He never paid me, or even thanked me for the time I spent.

324/365: The Chief

2009-05-18T00:01:00.000-07:00

We were both members of an arts commission. I enjoyed the commission so much – wonderful, creative, funny people. Then she took over as president and decided it should run in a business-like fashion. She was so militaristic that the fun went out of it. I started dreading going to the meetings and when my term of office was over, I asked not to be reappointed

323/365: Jimmy

2009-05-17T00:01:00.000-07:00

He was a classmate all through grammar school and he always teased me unmercifully about my weight. My most embarrassing moment was tearing the seat of my pants on a bush while I was at a park. I had to walk home with my underwear exposed. Jimmy waved to me from his upstairs apartment and I just about died, thinking he could see my butt.

322/365: Dae

2009-05-16T00:01:00.000-07:00

Dae was a neighbor and was pregnant when she moved in. She had a dog named Shannon, whom I loved. But he was killed one day by a meat truck (what a way for a dog to go). I went with her to pick out another dog. We got Blackie, who was the closest thing I ever had to my own dog as a child.

321/365: Catherine

2009-05-15T00:01:00.000-07:00

We were sophomores when Catherine came in mid-year to be our history teacher. Her predecessor had made history come alive for us, and Catherine was a stickler about memorizing dates. I hated history ever since her first day. She was a large woman with a hair lip and came across as a plodding personality, but 40 years later, she’s still teaching at my old school.

320/365: The Movie Critic

2009-05-14T00:01:00.000-07:00

He is a movie critic, an entertainment editor, and the local expert on all things Charles Schulz. He usually wears a shirt with Peanuts characters, his office is adorned with Peanuts memorabilia and his house is famous for its Christmas decorations, which leave the outside adorned with lights and characters and the inside is a veritable Peanuts museum, including hundreds of little statues & stuffed Snoopys.

319/365: Penny

2009-05-13T00:01:00.000-07:00

We stayed on a farm that she owns when I was in Australia. Lovely lady who raises miniature horses, sheep and chickens. She inherited the farm on the death of her father, but the downturn of the economy in Australia had caused her to sell off most of it. I loved watching her feed the baby lambs with formula in old nipple-topped beer bottles!

318/365: Alan #2

2009-05-12T00:01:00.000-07:00

He was one of 3 bosses in my first job. We worked OK together, but of the three he was my #3 favorite. I remember he invited me to a party the first year I worked for him. The party was to start at 8 and I arrived at 7:55 and nobody was ready for guests yet. That’s when I learned about being “fashionably late”!

317/365: Owen Chamberlain

2009-05-11T00:01:00.000-07:00

I had this Nobel Laureate for Physics 10 when I went to UC Berkeley. Hated the class. I did terrible. I never wanted to hear about physics ever, ever again. Then I was hired as a secretary for the Physics Department at UC Berkeley and at one point ended up working for ... Owen Chamberlain! (He was a very nice man, when he wasn’t my teacher!)

316/365: Snyder

2009-05-10T00:01:00.000-07:00

This guy had the lead in a play I was doing a story on. He refused to do an interview with me, fearing I would sabotage him, but did finally consent to a phone interview. Fascinating guy, very interesting, and I wrote good things about him–then he was fired from the play for bizarre behavior, apparently. Having seen him in rehearsal, it didn’t surprise me!

315/365: Yvonne Brewster

2009-05-09T00:01:00.000-07:00

I’d never met a living legend before. Well, other than Judy Garland. But Yvonne Brewster was awarded the “living legend award” by the National Black Theater Festival. She was one of my first “celebrity interviews” as a reporter. She could not have been more delightful, very down to earth and a pure joy to interview. Her production of “A Streetcar Named Desire” was also excellent.

314/365: The Med Student

2009-05-08T00:01:00.000-07:00

Students applying to medical school, fill out what is called am AMCAS form, part of which is a page long narrative about your life. This guy’s was so long that I ran it SO many times and when it was finally finished (to my great pride) it filled every single fraction of an inch of white space–but it took days to get it to fit!

313/365: David #2

2009-05-07T00:01:00.000-07:00

This is a guy I knew from Compuserve for several years before I actually met him in person. He looks like a stereotypical ship captain and at the time we met, he was living in a small mobile home he was driving around the country. Fascinating guy and one of my favorite people. We last saw him at dinner on Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco.

312/365: The PhD Student

2009-05-06T00:01:00.000-07:00

Closest I ever came to killing someone. I was hired to type his PhD thesis and we were at loggerheads the entire time.. When I had 200 pages typed and took it to him to proofread, he didn’t like the look of the letter “a” and he wanted me to remove every ‘a’ in the paper and replace it with a different typeface. I didn’t.

311/365: Mouton

2009-05-05T00:01:00.000-07:00

He hired me to help him with his college papers, to correct his grammar and his spelling (both of which were abominable). We had an easy camaraderie until I made the mistake of making one teasing remark to him, the kind we made to each other all the time, in front of his family. That was 30 years ago and he still hasn’t forgiven me

310/365: Sister Zoe

2009-05-04T00:01:00.000-07:00

We were all afraid of her. She had a perpetual scowl and the effect was enhanced with her dark tinted glasses. She was my homeroom teacher and throughout the year, we ALL came in for our share of (deserved) rebuke. However, in my darkest hour, she was the person who stood in my corner and took my side. It totally changed my opinion of her.

309/365: Dancer/Director/Choreographer

2009-05-03T00:01:00.000-07:00

I would have liked her more, initially, if she had asked her children to stop screaming during our interview. Fabulously talented woman who has choreographed on and off Broadway. When I met her she had just been through a round of chemo following a mastectomy. Says her next major project is to convince insurance companies that YOUNG women need better screening procedures for breast cancer.

308/365: Sean

2009-05-02T00:01:00.000-07:00

This guy, who looks like a miniature Luciano Pavarotti, is a walking encyclopedia of opera trivia. He has his own opera radio show and a local public radio network. I met him when his wife came to work in our office. . Both of them were wonderful people and I thoroughly enjoyed working with her, and got an in-depth education on all things opera from him.

307/365: LY

2009-05-01T00:01:00.000-07:00

One of the bravest women I know. Following the death of her mother from ovarian cancer, she had all the tests to determine if she was genetically predisposed and learned she had the markers for both ovarian and breast cancer. So she voluntarily underwent a bilateral mastectomy and a total hysterectomy to prolong her life. I don’t know if I could ever have done that.

306/365: Norma

2009-04-30T00:01:00.000-07:00

She was my boss at one of the worst jobs I ever had. It was a family business and I was the only non-family member. When an in-law was hired it caused friction within the family and they all turned on me, as the outsider. My working conditions went from being ideal to being abominable. I was finally told my services were no longer needed.

305/365: Janne

2009-04-29T00:01:00.000-07:00

My friend’s friend. I met her in Australia when I was visiting there and found her a delightful person, who loved building things. She and her dog Molly would go for walks with us in the bush every morning. Even Peggy didn’t know until many years later that she was so claustrophobic she couldn’t handle going to a theater with people around her.

304/365: Rafael

2009-04-28T00:01:00.000-07:00

Rafael was the leader of our second group of Chileans. As leader, he stayed with us. A large man with a hearty laugh who loved to cook. One of my favorite moments from his stay with us was his teaching one of our kids–was it Tom?–how to tie a tie. He moved to Florida but I lost contact with him about ten years ago.

303/365: DeeDee

2009-04-27T00:01:00.000-07:00

At one time I thought she and our son Paul would marry. They lived together in a duplex near our own house and watching him with her daughter was so beautiful. They bought me a garlic peeler once. But she left him for a former girlfriend and after Paul died she sent me a lovely scrapbook with photos of Paul playing with her then-baby daughter.

302/365: Anne #2

2009-04-26T00:01:00.000-07:00

She was one of my 3 best friends in high school and was my co-editor of the yearbook. Lovely girl who, presumably, has become a lovely woman. She left high school and became a nurse. Has a couple of kids and lives in So. California. I haven’t seen her in decades, but we still exchange greetings at Christmas. I’d like to see her again someday.

301/365: Gail

2009-04-25T00:01:00.000-07:00

She bought the business for which I worked and I stayed on to teach her how to do medical transcription. We learned WordPerfect together. One day I called in to find out where she was sending me to work that day and she said, “I’ve sold the business; you’ll have to find yourself another job.” I did....but what a shitty way to tell me!

300/365: Brodie

2009-04-24T00:01:00.000-07:00

He was there when our first son died (we were flying back from NY at the time). He had just gotten a degree in massage therapy and massaged Dave’s feet as he lay in the hospital bed. His wife was pregnant at the time and when the baby was born, his middle name was David. That baby is almost a teenager now. Hardly seems possible.

299/365: Cat Lady

2009-04-23T00:01:00.000-07:00

We knew each other from the theater and when I volunteered to be a photograher for the SPCA, I ran into her there–she was in charge of cat adoptions. She dragged me onto the SPCA board to do the newsletter. Her dedication to cats is admirable. The last time I was at her house, she must have had a dozen cats there, most awaiting adoption.

298/365: Mary #5

2009-04-22T00:01:00.000-07:00

She was one of the leading contraltos in a Gilbert & Sullivan musical theater company in San Francisco. A lovely lady, so completely UN-like many of the roles she played! After retirement, she moved to Mallorca for many years but she had moved back to California shortly before her death. We corresponded at Christmas and were always “going to get together” for lunch but never did.

297/365: Bruce

2009-04-21T00:01:00.000-07:00

My cousin was a grown man with grey hair before I ever knew he even existed. Which is not that strange since I have about 32 cousins. I met him at our first family reunion. We were in the parking lot and he asked “are we related?” He and his wife were married at the second family reunion at a ceremony performed by another cousin.

296/365: Shirley #2

2009-04-20T00:01:00.000-07:00

When I arrived in Davis, there was no La Leche League and so I agreed to get a group started. Shirley became my second in command and we led the group together for many years. She moved 80 miles away many years ago and we haven’t seen each other since, though we exchange Christmas greetings each year–I think her child attends the University here now.

295/365: Mike #2

2009-04-19T00:01:00.000-07:00

He looks like a rabbi but is a devout Christian with many eclectic interests. Our families have shared many adventures together...too many to count. Wherever he goes, it rains. “Follow that car,” a parking lot attendant once told us and we wanted to tell him we had “followed that car” for several hundred miles across the desert. And yes, it rained. In the desert.

294/365: Patrick

2009-04-18T00:01:00.000-07:00

He could not have been a more perfect roommate for Paul. They had music and so much more in common. I’m sorry Paul didn’t stay in school. Patrick once delivered a baby for a woman who had collapsed on the streets of San Francisco, and made headlines. Now he’s a well respected motivational speaker. I see stuff about him on the internet all the time.

293/365: HB

2009-04-17T00:01:00.000-07:00

A local artist whose style is definitely to my taste (if I were a collector, I’d collect some of her stuff). She knew our kids and performed at one of our funerals. Unfortunately what she chose was totally inappropriate, but we appreciated the love and the work that went into it. I haven’t seen her in several years now, but she’s a very nice person

292/365: Ken #2

2009-04-16T00:01:00.000-07:00

Lord, was this a creepy guy. The day I met him, he decided to show me a game on his computer. I wanted to be hospitable, so I answered all the questions on his game until they started getting very personal. I had to drive 300 miles with him the next day and was extremly uncomfortable. I’m glad I don’t know where he is now!

291/365: Mary #4

2009-04-15T00:01:00.000-07:00

I knew her from the internet, and only met her once, one of the worst nights of my life. She came to a party being given for us. We were in the back room on the phone learning that our son had been in an accident and wasn’t going to live. She was very nice...and very short! I wish I had known her better.

290/365: Stephanie

2009-04-14T00:01:00.000-07:00

I arranged for a group to donate money to allow her to attend a meeting she couldn’t afford to come to. A month later nobody had heard word one in thanks for their donations. It was not the first time I felt manipulated by her and I was rather miffed. It’s taken me a long time to get past her attitude about the whole thing.

289/365: John #5

2009-04-13T00:01:00.000-07:00

What a wonderful talented actor, and a darn nice person too. We were part of a very special production which had a profound on everyone involved. Then he disappeared for a long time and I only recently rediscovered him again, through his brother on Facebook, very happy to know that he’s still a nice guy, still talented and though not acting much, writing a lot.

288/365: Dougri

2009-04-12T00:01:00.000-07:00

Doug Blanchard was a videographer I met when I began posting videos on You Tube. He was an interesting guy, a beatnik type who thought anything good was “kick ass” and who loved Jack Kerouac. He was 10 years younger than I, and so when I received news that he had died it was a great shock. I hope you have a kick-ass eternity, Doug.

287/365: Bill #7

2009-04-11T00:01:00.000-07:00

There was a time when I thought he was gay, but he assures me he’s not. Very sweet, very gentle man who takes good care of his mother, but longs for a woman of his own to love and care for. He’s on a campaign to force himself to get out and find someone and I wish him well. He deserves some happiness and companionship.

286/365: Mrs. T

2009-04-10T00:01:00.000-07:00

They had a TV long before our family did, so I always tried to go and hang out with her daughter, so I could watch TV. Especially Superman. Poor Mrs. T was coerced into inviting me to dinner almost every night. I wonder if she enjoyed it as much as I did. I think my mother was embarrassed by how much time I spent there.

285/365: Carolyn #2

2009-04-09T00:01:00.000-07:00

We worked on a project together. When we met we were at the same places in our lives, young married women with small children. The project went well, though we had totally different styles. We went our separate ways at the end. She’s a hard core Republican and I am a staunch Democrat, so I suspect it’s good that we only exchange Christmas cards now!

284/365: Rutabaga Lady

2009-04-08T00:01:00.000-07:00

My most memorable La Leche League client. An older single mother with her first baby and petrified about everything. I was the La Leche League leader who answered her questions about breastfeeding, including the 2 a.m. call she made to ask me if her baby was crying because she ate rutabagas for dinner. I’m afraid that I was somewhat less than gentle in my response.

283/365: Dr. Macy

2009-04-07T00:10:00.000-07:00

He was the father of a family friend, and my first dentist. He didn’t believe in high speed drills, water, or novocaine. It was real torture going to him. He also didn’t believe in x-rays and when I finally went to a new dentist, he took x-rays for the first time and discovered Dr. Macy had missed thirteen cavities. I really loved the new dentist!

282/365: The Counselor #2

2009-04-06T00:01:00.000-07:00

My first major crisis occurred with the death of my best friend. I made an appointment to see a counselor, who spent most of the appointment talking about all the people with more serious problems than mine. When I left, I was given an assignment to complete for the next time. When that time came, I brought my “homework,” and it wasn’t even asked for.

281/365: The Counselor

2009-04-05T00:01:00.000-07:00

I’ve known this person for many, many years. A very talented well-intentioned mental health professional, well known in his circle. But I also got feedback from patients, when I worked for doctors’ offices, who had gone to see this person for therapy and were turned off when the counselor fell asleep during their sessions. I suppose after many years, you get bored with people’s problems!

280/365: Tom

2009-04-04T00:01:00.000-07:00

He’s our local videographer, who has videotaped all of the theatrical performances and a lot of other stage shows that have taken place in this town. He has become default historian for local theatrical companies because he’s the only one who takes an interest. Sweet man, whose talent for video has grown since I’ve known him and whose garage looks like a movie sound studio!

279/365: The bad driver

2009-04-03T00:01:00.000-07:00

She was my fill-in person to accompany me to plays when Walt was out of town, but her driving terrified me. I tried offering to do the driving myself, and I even drove to her house to pick her up, but she was adamant that SHE do the driving. Sadly, I stopped inviting her to join me. Now if Walt doesn’t come, I go alone.

278/365: Jose

2009-04-02T12:07:00.001-07:00

Our first high school exchange student from Brasil. He was a real mama’s boy who spent the first night here writing a long letter to his mother. The whole night. Later he graduated, returned to the US to work and was here 10 years until he married a woman from the Czech republic and moved to Prague. Now he’s back in Brasil again, teaching English.

277/365: Harris

2009-04-01T00:01:00.000-07:00

I understood he had been an Olympic ice skater. When I met him he was teaching in a tiny place in San Francisco and our Girl Scout troop was taking ice skating lessons from him. I was hopeless. He tried in vain to teach me how to do something simple like skate backwards. I was lucky just to be able to go forward and stop.

276/365: Ruth #4

2009-03-31T00:01:00.000-07:00

I tried to find her for 25 years. Our goodbye had been so final. I was always curious to find out what happened to her. When we finally met again, at a school reunion, she was very dismissive of all of us. Said her curiosity had been satisfied and she didn’t need to see us again. To date, she has resisted all attempts at contact.

275/365: Pat #5

2009-03-30T00:01:00.000-07:00

She always greets me with how much she likes my blog and how sorry she is that she hasn’t read it in awhile (it takes so long to read a page!). In truth, I don’t care if she reads it, but it’s embarrassing that SHE is embarrassed. If she doesn’t like it, fine. Let’s just not make that the focus of our conversation every time!

274/365: Brett

2009-03-29T00:01:00.000-07:00

He was our kids’ diving coach and molded the local diving team into a real force in California (for a recreational program vs. a lot of professional clubs). Unfortunately he eventually decided to become a professional trainer and we could no longer afford his fees and that was the end of our kids’ diving experience. He was a wine collector with his own wine cellar.

273/365: Robbie

2009-03-28T00:01:00.000-07:00

This hairdresser has a big following in town, I’ve heard. He did a great job on my hair, but his claim to fame is that he is very large and has long bushy hair. The fact that his real name is Robbie and that Robbie Coltrane played Hagrid in the Harry Potter movies makes it difficult to make little kids believe he’s not really Hagrid!

272/365: Rodrigo

2009-03-27T00:01:00.000-07:00

He was an exchange student with us for six months, a very unusual, studious Brasilian guy who was very nice, but didn’t seem to bond with us very well. He is most remembered around here for the stance he assumed whenever we took his picture (which was frequently!), a kind of bow-legged stance with elbows bent and out. Walt still stands like that for pictures.

271/365: RRJ

2009-03-26T00:01:00.000-07:00

We dated in my senior year in high school. He was the romantic lead in the senior class play. It was a girls’ school and we had to import the guys from other schools. In retrospect, this was the start of my becoming a fag hag. I couldn’t understand why he would rather be with his friend than with me...till I put 2 & 2 together.

270/365: Herc

2009-03-25T00:01:00.000-07:00

I remember two things about this dentist – he had bad breath and he yelled at me. I was so afraid of him that I stopped going to the dentist completely. All things considered he was a good dentist, but I just couldn’t take his scolding. It wasn’t until I found a friend, who was also a dentist, that I started taking care of my teeth.

269/365: Jerry

2009-03-24T00:01:00.000-07:00

Strangest man I ever met. I remember when he took me on his sailboat. As we got to the dock, he stopped talking “normal” and began talking “nautical” and talked that way until we got off the boat again. Aye, Matey, he did! He collected seashells. Died of jaw cancer several years after we met. Was missing half his jaw last time I saw him.

268/365: Marilyn #2

2009-03-23T00:01:00.000-07:00

She was a long time theatre/opera critic and we shared duties for awhile until her retirement. We also shared the sadness at the loss of a child. I spoke with her periodically, but never realized until her death what an amazing woman she had been and how varied her accomplishments throughout her life had been. I saved her old reviews on a Blogger web site.

267/365: Peggy #2

2009-03-22T00:01:00.000-07:00

I met her 1-2 years ago, a delightful woman who was, I believe, a nurse during her working life. She lost her daughter to (cancer?) a little over a year ago. I don’t see her as often as I would like, but I always enjoy her company and her memories of some of her life experiences. She is now facing knee surgery in the future.